Yegor Kuzmich Ligachyov (also transliterated as Ligachev; Russian: Егор Кузьмич Лигачёв; 29 November 1920 – 7 May 2021[1][2][3]) was a Soviet and Russian politician who was a high-ranking official in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and who continued an active political career in post-Soviet Russia.

However, Ligachyov lost his posts in 1990, a year before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, resigning from his political career at the 28th Party Congress.

In a memoir published in 1984, Nikolai Baibakov, the chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee, praised Ligachyov for introducing "modern management methods" in Tomsk, and for his "tremendous contribution to all branches of the region's economy.

[6] He was to hold this position until 1983, when he was discovered by Yuri Andropov and made head of the Party Organization Department and a Secretary of the Central Committee.

[7] During this period, Ligachyov began to utter the phrase "Boris, you are wrong" when referring to Yeltsin in a political discourse.

[8] At the 28th Congress of the CPSU in 1990, he criticized Gorbachev for circumventing the Party via the Soviet Presidency, and he argued Glasnost had gone too far.

During the Party Congress, Ligachyov challenged Gorbachev for the office of General Secretary, standing as the "Leninist" candidate.

Serge Schmemann of The New York Times wrote that the author was driven "to seek explanations for what went wrong, to understand his own role" and while the reviewer wished for more intrigue (in the form of detailed accounts of events other than the dissolution of the USSR), he believed the book was an interesting and detailed account of that period from the perspective of an "honest Bolshevik".

[13][14] Although publicly endorsing perestroika, Ligachyov was opposed to Gorbachev's attempts to expand Soviet authority and limit the responsibilities of party officials.

[19] Furthermore, together with KGB chief Viktor Chebrikov, Ligachyov took several opportunities before he was demoted to Secretary for Agriculture in 1988 to warn against rapid reform.

[20] Although not mentioned in his memoirs to any notable extent, Ligachyov played a significant role in dismissing Yeltsin, arguing with him for long periods of time in 1987.

He was diagnosed with bilateral pneumonia and multiple autonomic disorders according to the doctors; they assessed Ligachyov’s condition as extremely serious because of his old age.